My New ¼” Side Bead Moulding Plane

Introduction - Why Use Moulding Planes?

Moulding planes are extremely effective tools- quick to setup and easy to use. They can take the place of most router bits and leave a much cleaner surface. Plane irons shear wood fibers, leaving a perfectly smooth surface ready for finishing. A router bit, no matter how sharp, leaves a scalloped surface behind. Now, if you are running 1,000 linear feet of crown molding, a router/shaper is the way to go. If you want to quickly add a bead detail to a door or table apron, tweak a rabbet, or cut a few dados, you can grab a moulder and have it done in seconds. It's also much easier to quickly wreck a piece using a power tool than with a moulding plane. Not to mention the dust, noise, and danger inherent in power tools.
Moulding plane blades were normally bedded at 45 degrees to the sole of the plane, though British planes commonly used 50 degrees (York pitch) or higher. As the bedding angle increased, the action of the plane iron becomes more of a scraping action, and less of a shearing action. This is the same effect as increasing the effective cutting angle of a bench plane. The benefit to a higher pitch is that the plane will perform better on hardwoods with difficult grain. The cost is the plane may be harder to push and has a reduced usable edge life. On the other hand keeping the blade sharp goes a long way to making it very effective.

The Concept

I started by selecting a piece of Spalted Maple and Pine. The idea here was to mate the two together vertically where the top half will be the Pine and the bottom half will be the Spalted Maple.
Pine has a nice soft comfortable feel in the hand.  So I wanted to chance using it for where the hand rests on the top half of the plane.  I needed the structural part on the bottom where the bead profile, quirk, fence, and depth stop will see the wear. So instead of getting into boxing solely for structural benefit of the bead profile itself, I decided to make the whole bottom half Spalted Maple.
This side bead moulding plane cuts a bead on the edge of a board. Because of the integral fence and depth stop it is simple to use- hold it upright against the edge of a board and plane until it stops cutting. Very simple. These type of planes are always boxed- at a minimum the "quirk" of the bead is boxed. Better planes are completely boxed. As mentioned, my whole bottom half is boxed.
These are very useful planes to have on-hand. A bead detail is useful anywhere you want to add interest to an edge- along a table skirt for example. It also serves to soften a sharp edge, protecting people and the edge from splintering. A bead is also a good idea anywhere you want to distract the eye from a joint where two things meet- along a the vertical lines of a door, or along the edge of a ship-lap back of a case piece. The bead hides subtle variations in the edges from the viewer.

 Building the Body and Wedge 

The overall plane dimensions are 1” x 3.5” x 10”. I hand planed the two halves and squared them up all around. Then I joined and glued the two halves with a full length sliding dovetail (as shown). 

Next, I shaped the bottom full length with the ¼” bead profile, quirk, fence, and depth stop.

I then cut out the mouth, cheek, bed, and breast. The Bed Angle is 50° and the Breast Angle is 60°. The primary bevel angle on the blade is 35°.

Next, I shaped a 10°  Wedge. The final shaping comes after making the blade.

Detailing

There was some very minor chip out along the mating surface edges of the upper and lower halves, between the Pine and Spalted Maple. So I decided to use my scratchstock and strategically place a bead on both sides at this parting line.

I started to use my Lee Valley Veritas cast iron scratchstock but its fence depth was not great enough. So I used my home made scratchstock with the veritas ¼” bead cutter.

Surprisingly the scratch stocking was very successful. Spalted wood especially Maple is not easy to do but can be if you monitor your pressure and speed.
 

Making the Blade

It’s now far enough in the build that the blade needs to be made. I assembled the rough cut out blade stock into the plane so that it was just poking out of the mouth and scribed the bead and quirk outline on it.

Next, I setup my homemade forge. I showed this in a previous post. I then annealed the blade to remove the hardening.

Next, I cleaned up the blade and gave it the first grinding, shaping and honing.  Then I re-hardened the blade. Before going too far, I wanted to make a test cut to make sure I had made a functional plane. I didn’t want to push cutting too much because the blade at this stage is brittle. The test cut was very pleasing. Then I fired up the forge again and tempered the blade. A straw color means it’s perfectly tempered. It softens the steel a bit and readies it for final honing.

Lastly, I did the final honing to the blade. I used my DMT Diasharp diamond stones 600, 1200, 8000 and final polishing with a Shapton Ceramic waterstone 16,000. It came out very very sharp! Then a quick final test cut pass confirms the blade is ready for use!

Preparing for Final Finish

After the first coat is dry, I go over with a brown paper bag. This is an old woodworker’s technique that many seldom hear about. It de-nibs, lightly sands and buffs the wood. IMO it’s better than steel wool, costs nothing really, and cleaner for the surface.

The Final Finish

I applied the final finish. I gave it 3 coats of General Finishes Oil based Gel Top Coat, Satin. Each coat dried for 12 hours. Between each coat I Brown paper bagged it. Then I gave one generous coat of wood butter and polished.

Hope you enjoyed this! Cheers!!

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